SOMERVILLE — With 352 votes, incumbent Dorice Weeks had just 10 fewer votes than the third place winner of the April 27 school board elections. The same election saw overwhelming support for next year’s $40.7 million district budget, passing 534-255.

Weeks won’t be sworn in to a new three-year term at the district reorganization meeting at 7 p.m. on May 10. Instead Norman Chin and John Prudente will join current Vice President Al Kerestes on the nine-member board.

Kerestes was the top vote getter, with 409, followed by Chin with 395; Prudente, 362; Weeks, and Ronald Szumigala Jr., 320.

Chin had lost a 2010 bid for re-election after serving on the board from 2007 to 2010.
In 2006, Prudente ran unsuccessfully for Borough Council.

Superintendent Timothy Purnell attributed the overwhelming passage of the tax levy to “a lot of excitement about new programs.”

When the 2010-11 budget levy was defeated last year, the district had to drop the high school golf and gymnastics programs as well as the entire freshman sports program. The 2011-12 budget reinstates those programs and eliminates instead an assistant to the superintendent position, reducing administrative overhead. Purnell thinks taxpayers were pleased with those decisions. “I’m thrilled,” he said on Monday.

The district was recently cited as among the top 6% of high schools in the nation by Newsweek and the middle school was awarded a $20,000 “Mr. Holland’s Opus” grant for its music program.

“We have to continue to maintain this high quality educational experience for our children,” Purnell said. Within a week or so he plans to launch an online community needs assessment on the district Website, somervillenjk12.org, to help bring the community into that process.

Purnell, who joined the district in February from Harding Township, said he’ll use the responses “to chart our course for next year,” and set district goals and objectives. For him, the biggest challenge the district faces is to give teachers equipment and training to bring technology into the classroom. Purnell hopes to receive grants to support both, he said, because, “Neither is cheap.”